The Hard Way

...And too many gray characters with the exception of Jack Carson as the sincere but simple Albert Runkel.

Even the alleged villainess of the story, Helen (Ida Lupino) starts out with the best intentions. She lives in hopeless poverty in a mill town with natural surroundings that are even ugly with coal slag and air clouded with smoke bellowing from the local factories. She doesn't want to see her sister suffer her fate - loveless marriage with never enough money - so she takes her first false step. She pushes younger sister Katie into marriage with malleable vaudevillian Albert Runkel, and uses that marriage as an excuse to leave the poverty of Green Hill and her marriage behind. Poor old underachieving Sam - Helen's husband - is never mentioned again.

The problem is that, over time, Helen forgets that she is doing what she is doing for Katie to get ahead. It's not enough that she get ahead, Katie has to be on top, and there is nobody too close or too vulnerable for Helen to step on to get Katie on the next rung of stardom. Eventually this becomes more about Helen's success with Katie as the golden goose that she is slowly choking to death.

WB emphasizes the dramatic portion of this film rather than the musical, and that is good since the two musical numbers included are underwhelming. Fortunately, WB didn't have Joan Leslie be the centerpiece of more than one of them since singing and dancing were never her forte. Also fortunately, there is at least a number by talented WB tenor Dennis Morgan. It's just too bad that the material wasn't better.

This was probably the best dramatic role Ida Lupino ever had. It's definitely worth it if you are a fan of Warner Brothers' output product in the 1940s.

A question I have - Dennis Morgan is always going on as to how the dream of all humble people is a house in the country with ten kids. But how do you support ten kids in the middle of nowhere? It seems our leading man has high ideals but not many practical ones. It would have been instructive to drop in on him in ten years and see how that "dream of all humble people" was working out for him. But I digress.